Does it snow much here?

Does it snow much here?

Being a science teacher I've always felt that a good demonstration will tell someone much more than just words. We recieved that demonstration on Friday. So regardless of what anyone tells me, in my opinion, the answer to this question is a resounding "NO". Let me explain.

Very fine wet flakes greeted me as I looked out the window on this Friday morning. The kind that you just know will result in perfect "snowball" snow. Since both of our vehicles were recently equipped with snow tires, I didn't give it a second thought. I could still see a lot of grass poking through the white stuff, certainly not enough to impede my daily schedule.

Dana left early that morning, around 6:30. I called her an hour later to get a road report even though I wasn't at all worried. It's about a 30 km drive into work that takes her around 25 minutes or so. On this morning, one hour of "driving" had yielded her only about 6 or 7 km in distance. I quickly realized we had a problem, although the problem wasn't necessarily the snow, but those driving on it.

I took one turn out of our drive and was immediately greeted by my first of many French lessons through my driver's side window. I was told that the route was blocked due to an accident. Luckily I've jogged on almost every road in a 8 km radius around my house (searching, unsucessfully for a flat road); so, I knew a back route. As I started up the hill, I got to witness first hand just how poorly their normal tires work on snow. They don't. The driver asked me to help give his a push, which I did. Unfortunately, when I stopped pushing he stopped moving. Thankfully, he decided that he wasn't going to ask me to push him the remaining kilometer up the hill. We went around and he used gravity to go backwards.

The next conversation I had informed me that I couldn't use my first attempt at a back route. I asked her about another route and she replied "troup dangereuse". I decided to take my chances. It was slow going, but I made it to the main route without a slip.

Then, again I was told not to take my intended route, which is one of the largest roads in the area. I asked if the route was actually closed and was told "no", but was also told something about it being slick and dangerous. Since I had not yet slipped once on the less than 2 inches of snow, I decided again to risk it. Parked haphazardly along the route were no less than 30 vehicles. People were everywhere talking, smoking and holding their palms up in frustration. The kids and I? We drove right through at about 20 mph.

I was in North Carolina once when they recieved about 8 inches of snow. The place was shut down and drivers were all over the road. I was reminded of this while driving around on this morning. No one seemed to have a clue how to drive in the stuff. Also, several had obviously opted not to buy snow tires. The bottom line is that I feel confident that snowfall is rarely too plentiful at our level of the mountain.

Had it not been for the other drivers I would have made it to school in only 5 minutes longer than usual. As it was, I the 5 minute drive took 45 minutes. Being so concerned with getting to school, it never occured to me that the teachers and other parents were the folks that I had been laughing at along the roads all morning. After parking we immediately saw kids walking the wrong direction for the morning commute. They were shouting with glee "No School!". Regardless of the troubles we had making it, it never crossed my mind that less than 2 inches of snow would result in a day off of school.

The trouble now was that I didn't really care to run the gauntlet back home. So we headed to a friend's house to play in the snow and have some hot chocolate. Luckily for me the husband was home, so I had someone other than the ubiquitous mom to talk to. Unluckily for him, he was home because he and his Renault had gone careening down his 1/4 mile long 45 degree angle driveway earlier that morning. It's hard to head to work when your car is imbedded in a guard rail at the bottom of the hill. He's been in France for three years, I guess the custom of waiting to put on the snow tires has worn off on him.

Meanwhile, Dana never did make it to work. She spent the morning at a different friend's house have coffee and tea. It was a great morning for the family to sit by the fire and have a hot drink, even if we did it at different places.

The good news is, the "catastrophe" was short lived. The temperature here doesn't stay below freezing for long and the plows did a good job. By early afternoon everything was clear and all was back to normal. I actually headed to Barcelona with some friends later in the day, but that's another story.